No Metrics, Little Analytics

If your department doesn’t track metrics on your analytics, you are probably not doing analytics or you are making little progress in analytics.

In either case, its obvious that analytics isn’t very important to your management.

Which is one of the points I made in my post, 10 Signs Mgmt Doesn’t Really Support Analytics.

So far, I have encountered very few audit departments that track meaningful metrics about their analytics.

Counting the number of projects that include analytics isn’t enough.

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Free/Cheap Monitoring Tools (SANS)

In case you missed it, the Internet Storm Center had a great post the other day, asking readers:

Conclusion: Audit Server Disappeared

In Case File: Audit Server Disappeared, I noted that a friend of mine learned that  IT had, on its own prerogative, wiped a server belonging to Internal Audit because “it never appeared to be used.”

Some of you already commented on some of the issues involved in this incident and the normal IT activities that should have prevented this incident (or at least alerted IT that something was wrong). Let’s review those comments and I’ll add some other details and comments.

What Needs to be on a GOOJ Card?

If you probe networks, systems, and applications, you need a GOOJ card to protect yourself and your job.

In How to Stay Out of Jail, I recommended that anyone who scans, probes, or pokes networks, systems, or devices should always carry a get-out-of-jail (GOOJ) card. I also provided some reasons why such a card is critical.